The floods have receded here NuL and I have climbed down out of the roof space and walked across a wasteland of frozen mud to buy food from the local supermarket. It was too cold to get out of bed today, apart from making the breakfast coffee, so I took the opportunity and huddled beneath the blankets and finished Religion in Java. Geerz did his fieldwork in the early 50s and the book was published in 1960. So what he describes is very much the transition from the traditional way of life left over from colonial rule to the modern state heavily influenced by popular American/Western culture.
Geerz does expound his theory of religion in Religion in Java, the book is based on his field work and much of the time he lets the people of Modjokuto speak for themselves. The study is impressive in its detail and the divide between abangan and santri that forms the bulk of the book is still seen today, despite much greater social mobility.
For the first few years after independence the country was unified by a nationalistic pride in having succeeded in the struggle for freedom and a general feeling that the Sukarno government needed time and support to build the new state. No one could expect Geerz to have foreseen the fall of Sukarno and the massacre that followed but it does surprise me that he did not say more about the rise of the Communist PKI - the largest outside the USSR and China - and the likely conflict with the orthodox Muslim santris. The growth of Western pop culture gets only a mention at the end of the book but in the coming decade it was to sweep aside so many of the kasar ( rough/coarse or peasant) cultural art forms.Religion in Java made me wonder what an anthropological study of religion in a small town in England in 1952 would have been like. Surprisingly similar in some ways, I think. Religious belief was still the norm and church attendance high. The divide between Catholic and Protestant and High and Low Church would have paralleled much that made up life in Modjokuto.
I have now come to the end of the essential reading for anyone interested in South East Asia but I still have plenty more to read. Next I move on to an historical anthology that I read selectively, skipping the bulk of the book that did not apply to my studies at the time.
I have discovered some frozen dregs of red wine and will now try mulling them with Chinese ginger and spices in an attempt to warm up.
Geerz does expound his theory of religion in Religion in Java, the book is based on his field work and much of the time he lets the people of Modjokuto speak for themselves. The study is impressive in its detail and the divide between abangan and santri that forms the bulk of the book is still seen today, despite much greater social mobility.
For the first few years after independence the country was unified by a nationalistic pride in having succeeded in the struggle for freedom and a general feeling that the Sukarno government needed time and support to build the new state. No one could expect Geerz to have foreseen the fall of Sukarno and the massacre that followed but it does surprise me that he did not say more about the rise of the Communist PKI - the largest outside the USSR and China - and the likely conflict with the orthodox Muslim santris. The growth of Western pop culture gets only a mention at the end of the book but in the coming decade it was to sweep aside so many of the kasar ( rough/coarse or peasant) cultural art forms.Religion in Java made me wonder what an anthropological study of religion in a small town in England in 1952 would have been like. Surprisingly similar in some ways, I think. Religious belief was still the norm and church attendance high. The divide between Catholic and Protestant and High and Low Church would have paralleled much that made up life in Modjokuto.
I have now come to the end of the essential reading for anyone interested in South East Asia but I still have plenty more to read. Next I move on to an historical anthology that I read selectively, skipping the bulk of the book that did not apply to my studies at the time.
I have discovered some frozen dregs of red wine and will now try mulling them with Chinese ginger and spices in an attempt to warm up.